United States Attorney Ronald A. Parsons, Jr. announced that a Rapid City, South Dakota, woman was charged in federal district court with 20 counts of Wire Fraud and 5 counts of Money Laundering.
Olivia Kuehner, age 48, was charged on Jan. 23, 2018. She appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daneta Wollmann on Jan. 26, 2018, and pleaded not guilty to the charges. The maximum penalty on each count upon conviction is 20 years of imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine, 3 years of supervised release, and a $100 assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Restitution may also be ordered.
The indictment alleges that Kuehner, between September 2012 and June 2017, while employed as the accounting manager for the Rapid City Club for Boys, Inc. ("Club for Boys"), devised a scheme to defraud the Club for Boys of more than $120,000.00. The indictment alleges Kuehner embezzled money belonging to the Club for Boys by making fraudulent payments to herself, family members, and a nominee entity she controlled, and then omitted the fraudulent payments from the Club for Boys’ accounting records or misclassified the payments to make it appear vendors or other employees had been paid. After receiving the fraudulently obtained funds, Kuehner transferred a portion of the funds to other bank accounts she controlled in order to conceal the nature, source and ownership of the embezzled proceeds.
The charges are merely an accusation and Kuehner is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
The investigation is being conducted by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Rapid City Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin Patterson is prosecuting the case.
Kuehner was detained pending a hearing on Monday, Jan. 29, 2017. A trial date has not been set.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
